Post by Rexsy"Divine Creativity exists when thought is not, for Universal Cosmic
Energy may freely immerse the silent mind of great intelligence with
limitless freedom of creations!"
Rexsy
www.rexsy.com
http://books.google.com/books?id=MKOERo1EEWsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Creativity+and+spirituality:+bonds+between+art+and+religion&hl=en&ei=Odq_TrO1F4XMtge0w5DkBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
From the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright to the rock gardens of Zen
Buddhism, Coleman explores applied, fine, and folk arts in order to uncover
points of coalescence between art and religion. Drawing from six living
faiths (Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Taoism), this
book philosophically analyzes relations between art and religion in order to
explain how the concepts "art", "beauty", "creativity", and "aesthetic
experience" find their place or counterparts in religious discourse and
experience. Coleman repeatedly shows that aesthetic ideas can serve as
bridges to spiritual categories, as when he relates aesthetic bliss to "the
peace that passes all understanding".<p>The author follows a three-fold
approach; first, he examines ideas and motifs from religious classics in
world literature, such as Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching and The Interior Castle by
Teresa of Avila, in order to relate them to aesthetic phenomena. Second, he
turns to the statements of artists, such as Leo Tolstoy, Vincent van Gogh,
Paul Gauguin, Shiht'ao, and Wassily Kandinsky, for themes and practices that
have religious significance. Third, he analyzes and evaluates the writings
of various theoreticians -- philosophers, theologians, art critics,
sociologists, and psychologists -- on the relations between art and
religion. Coleman demonstrates, for example, that Martin Buber's I-Thou
relationship captures much that is central to art, creativity, and aesthetic
experience as well as to religious life.<p>Among the themes that receive
sustained treatment are: the varieties of union in art and religion, the
child as a paradigm for artists and saints, and creativity as essential to
religion.